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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => The Basement => Topic started by: Mike Karseboom on January 31, 2019, 12:56:20 AM
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Just wondering if it is reasonable to expect rappers to bring their own mics? I have a potential gig coming up and am dreading the idea of all the saliva filling my vocal mics. These would just be a couple of SM58's but there is no budget in this gig for equipment write offs. The music is not really to my taste so I'm on the fence whether I want to suffer through the show anyway.
I know ultimately it is up to me to negotiate my own terms but curious if refusing to provide vocal mics to rappers is way out in left field?
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Pad your bid with $99 extra for an SM58. Buy a new one and let them take the one you supplied with them.
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just cover the mic screen in wrap
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Definitely. Especially those who complain about the mesh being anything but pristine.
Guitarists manage to bring their own guitars, if the mic is that important to you (which it should be) bring your own.
Steve.
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My take is if you are going to provide the sound then its up to you to provide the sound. If you don't have any b-stock mics then hit up craigslist or as was mentioned buy a new one and delegate an old one to your b-stock. Around here rental 58's are $5/day, that's another option. Expecting the artist to go out and buy one on your demand won't win you any favor's. The windscreen does come off and is washable, if all else fails, a new grill with foam windscreen is $6 on amazon.
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No it’s not a reasonable expectation. Sound provider is customarily expected to provide all necessary mics. Smart vocalists do bring their own but don’t count on that.
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I have a couple of spare mesh ball ends for my 58's and I swap out nasty ones for clean, and wash them. It only takes a couple of minutes, and as noted, OEM spares are pretty cheap.
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As opposed to heavy metal vocalists or beat boxers?
Everyone should bring their own mics if they had a clue but luckily for those of us who make a living providing mics they don't. If you're going to be in the business of providing sound systems you're going to want to be content agnostic.
Just wondering if it is reasonable to expect rappers to bring their own mics? ...
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sounds like I need to suck it up and provide the mic's. I think it is really only 2 guys that rap full time and I do have some older 58's. I also have an unused SM48 that maybe I'll sneak into the mix.
I just sort of cringe when I see the their videos where they have a beer in one hand and a cupped mic in their mouth in the other. If the mic's actually suffer any damage I guess I will know better next time.
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I just sort of cringe when I see the their videos where they have a beer in one hand and a cupped mic in their mouth in the other. If the mic's actually suffer any damage I guess I will know better next time.
It's a cost of doing business.
Just like Gaff and Batteries.
For these kind of shows, you build it into the cost.
I clean out all vocal mic's pretty often anyway.
58's are pretty tough to actually break. Just the (replaceable) ball takes a beating.
Chris.
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Don't forget the mic drop at the end! >:(
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I just sort of cringe when I see the their videos where they have a beer in one hand and a cupped mic in their mouth in the other. If the mic's actually suffer any damage I guess I will know better next time.
I’m curious what other music work you’re doing that is different from this. The music style has nothing to do with it. I’m assuming you haven’t seen the effects of heavily applied bright pink lipstick eh?
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I’m curious what other music work you’re doing that is different from this. The music style has nothing to do with it. I’m assuming you haven’t seen the effects of heavily applied bright pink lipstick eh?
Or bright red...
Just pull the mesh off, remove the foam (to wash and dry separately) and load up a draw in the dishwasher.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
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sounds like I need to suck it up and provide the mic's. I think it is really only 2 guys that rap full time and I do have some older 58's. I also have an unused SM48 that maybe I'll sneak into the mix.
I just sort of cringe when I see the their videos where they have a beer in one hand and a cupped mic in their mouth in the other. If the mic's actually suffer any damage I guess I will know better next time.
The beer in the hand? ANY country gig. All country gigs. Spilling into wedges, onto pedal boards, and general loutishness.
Remove the SM58 ball from each mic, take them home and put them in the top rack of your dishwasher. If there is dried yucky matter, soak them in warm water with a *small* amount of dish soap for a couple of hours. Rise & put in dishwasher. Regular cycle, remove and air dry before reassembly.
Use an alcohol prep pad and clean the exposed, non-foam parts of the SM58 before reassembly.
We keep some prep pads and some sanitizing wet-naps (first aid supply) in the work boxes to clean mics between singers or as needed.
A performer supplying mics is iffy. Sometimes you get utter junk and sometimes they'll surprise you with nice kit and know how to use it. In general I'm willing to listen to any mic and almost always will go with whatever the performer desires. For a one-off it's not worth the hassle of artist discomfort.
Rap doesn't have to be a bad performance experience but you will need to get in touch with your inner MC. By that I mean.... in order to ring out wedges and side fills you'll need to emulate the technique and physical interactions of speaker, mic, and performer. Cup the mic. Shout Dr. Suess (Dr Dre aint' got shit on Horton the Elephant), rap John Denver's "Thank God I'm A Country Boy" (it's harder than you'd think). Point the mic down into a wedge. Do what they do, but at this point you can control the potential chaos. Make it as loud as you can in the monitors without feedback. Back down on the sends about 6dB as your starting point with the talent.
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Rap doesn't have to be a bad performance experience but you will need to get in touch with your inner MC. By that I mean.... in order to ring out wedges and side fills you'll need to emulate the technique and physical interactions of speaker, mic, and performer. Cup the mic. Shout Dr. Suess (Dr Dre aint' got shit on Horton the Elephant), rap John Denver's "Thank God I'm A Country Boy" (it's harder than you'd think). Point the mic down into a wedge. Do what they do, but at this point you can control the potential chaos. Make it as loud as you can in the monitors without feedback. Back down on the sends about 6dB as your starting point with the talent.
Watch your 2 khz when you cup the mic, you may even want to preemptively cut that by a fair amount. A little bit of compression on the vocal can really smooth out a performance. If the performer has access to right in front of the pa he most likely will stand right in front of it at some point. Be ready on your L/R pan on the vocals if they do that. Rap shows can be a lot of fun and are pretty easy to do.
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Watch your 2 khz when you cup the mic, you may even want to preemptively cut that by a fair amount. A little bit of compression on the vocal can really smooth out a performance. If the performer has access to right in front of the pa he most likely will stand right in front of it at some point. Be ready on your L/R pan on the vocals if they do that. Rap shows can be a lot of fun and are pretty easy to do.
I had a whole 'nuther paragraph that included some "spectral advice" but figured that Mike will suss it out.
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Most rap gigs i have the misfortune of touching are fill in nights, eg promotor booked talent for 2 weeks and this is small market tuesday night. they dont want to pay anything, the venue doesnt want to put anything into it as the crowd attracted prefers their intoxicants in smoke able forms and liquor sales rarely top 5 per patron. I tell them up front I provide only well beaten SM58. If they want more the local music store is open till 6 and I will handle a return at no charge.
We are lucky in the frozen north though local music store being a national chain and any rental from any store can be returned to any location. Most become savvy enough to just rent some good gear for the whole tour.
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Rap doesn't have to be a bad performance experience ...
Yeah, the metal fests I agreed to do last year turned out to be a lot more enjoyable than expected. I was especially impressed with the friendliness of the crowd. For every out of control rager there must have been ten guys that stepped up to keep them in line.
Lots of good advice here and I am a lot more optimistic going forward.
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The beer in the hand? ANY country gig. All country gigs.
Most bar gigs regardless of genre can be the same way. That's one of the many reasons that I stopped doing them long ago. :-\
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Most bar gigs regardless of genre can be the same way. That's one of the many reasons that I stopped doing them long ago. :-\
I owned the big old Yamaha white-cone 15" monitors. The woofers didn't survive but I was amazed at how long the HF would work if you poured out the beer and other fluids, disassembled and cleaned the driver & diaphragm.
Drunk people pay for lots of stuff with their consumption; the problem is that *we*, the folks whose gear is damaged, are not who gets a proportionate share of the money.
Our shop seldom does bar-level work as that market can't usually afford our rates and that's just fine with me.
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I'd think it would be a disaster in waiting to have the money channel mic be supplied by the artist for such gigs. Whose fault will it be to the promoter if it malfunctions?
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I'd think it would be a disaster in waiting to have the money channel mic be supplied by the artist for such gigs. Whose fault will it be to the promoter if it malfunctions?
The Sound Guy (Gal), of course.
Chris.
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The Sound Guy (Gal), of course.
Chris.
Of course. We get blamed for everything. We were blamed for the low voltage at a venue - peak of summer air conditioning load across our entire electrical grid region. Seems the guitar techs for the headline act were having trouble getting the 130V they wanted from their vintage Variacs. They complained up the food chain to the promoter. "Sure you can't do something about that?" Sorry about the 108V, guys, but we're not in charge of the PoCo's big squirrel cages. The voltage matches the heat index, if that makes you feel any better. ::)
Another instance being assigned the blame - not our gig, but a respectable and friendly local competitor. l'Acoustic rig in a theater, plays a whole bunch of shows a year... all kinds of stuff. Generally it's friendly to mix on, sounds like you'd expect it to, and seldom do BEs take issue with the rig (mix position sucks but that can't be fixed the PA company). A few months back the *rig* was scorned in social media after a less than stellar night by a touring act/BE. Oddly, those that decried the system and cast aspersions on its deployment missed that it was the same rig, in the same place, same drive, same amps... that many of them had raved about previously. Incredible.
So yeah, if MC Squared's mic dies it's our fault. Hell, blame *me* the next performer's mic that dies in Berlin, Randy! I can take it. I've been scapegoated for bigger things! ;D ::) My ScapeGoat. Super Powers include stopping traffic on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers (at the same time!) and somehow being involved in a massive pyro display failure in St Louis while I was 400 miles west of there (on the same day, while having nothing to do with pyro displays!). So some crappy mic on a shitty cable, failing half way around the world? Yeah, I can take it. 8) 8) 8) 8)
/satire
If we're gonna get blamed for it anyway, let him kill his mic first. We'll have our wired spare ready. Like we always do.
edit ps - those SGSP incidents? Yep, somehow my name came up in every one of them in spite of having nothing to do with any of them. Don't mess with me, I have super powers! /evil laugh
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If you have access to an ultrasonic cleaner it does a fantastic job AND you get to shake your head at whats left in the bottom after cleaning a dozen or so.
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Just pull the mesh off, remove the foam (to wash and dry separately) and load up a draw in the dishwasher.
...
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Rap doesn't have to be a bad performance experience but you will need to get in touch with your inner MC. By that I mean.... in order to ring out wedges and side fills you'll need to emulate the technique and physical interactions of speaker, mic, and performer. Cup the mic. Shout Dr. Suess (Dr Dre aint' got shit on Horton the Elephant), rap John Denver's "Thank God I'm A Country Boy" (it's harder than you'd think). Point the mic down into a wedge. Do what they do, but at this point you can control the potential chaos. Make it as loud as you can in the monitors without feedback. Back down on the sends about 6dB as your starting point with the talent.
+1 to this.
Also, use a proper side fill. Around here someone has gotten the idea that a DSR112 or similar on a stick is a side fill. It's not. Not even close. A pair of KF750/850/C4/M3/Flash or similar on a suitable numbers of dual 18" is a side fill. It has headroom enough to give you an easy night with enough low end and SPL if the performers are deaf.
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+1 to this.
Also, use a proper side fill. Around here someone has gotten the idea that a DSR112 or similar on a stick is a side fill. It's not. Not even close. A pair of KF750/850/C4/M3/Flash or similar on a suitable numbers of dual 18" is a side fill. It has headroom enough to give you an easy night with enough low end and SPL if the performers are deaf.
While the size of the show won't warrant that much side fill, the topic of side fill has come up a couple of times in this rapper thread. I am assuming you mean a side wash type monitor fill for the stage itself.
Is there something specific about the rap type show (with 5 piece band as well) that suggests side fills be important? Normally I only use those for bluegrass type shows and then the monitors at up at head height.
This stage is in a old 400 capacity theater and is about 28 feet wide by 18 feet back to the curtains. The crowd size will likely be 100-200 people.
I would normally use a setup something like shown in the attachment with 3 or 4 monitors across the front, drum fill, etc. The 4x center clustered subs normally leak back onto the stage and provide plenty of low end for the performers. Is there a reason side washes would be needed?
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While the size of the show won't warrant that much side fill, the topic of side fill has come up a couple of times in this rapper thread. I am assuming you mean a side wash type monitor fill for the stage itself.
Is there something specific about the rap type show (with 5 piece band as well) that suggests side fills be important? Normally I only use those for bluegrass type shows and then the monitors at up at head height.
This stage is in a old 400 capacity theater and is about 28 feet wide by 18 feet back to the curtains. The crowd size will likely be 100-200 people.
I would normally use a setup something like shown in the attachment with 3 or 4 monitors across the front, drum fill, etc. The 4x center clustered subs normally leak back onto the stage and provide plenty of low end for the performers. Is there a reason side washes would be needed?
Side fills are excellent for covering moving performers and multiple performers.
And with side fill I mean a PA in it's own right. Big, bad and beautiful.
You're not going to regret bringing it when the artist bring 15+ people up on stage who do an excellent job of standing around blocking the floor monitors. It will happen at some point in 90% of these shows.
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+1 to this.
Also, use a proper side fill. Around here someone has gotten the idea that a DSR112 or similar on a stick is a side fill. It's not. Not even close. A pair of KF750/850/C4/M3/Flash or similar on a suitable numbers of dual 18" is a side fill. It has headroom enough to give you an easy night with enough low end and SPL if the performers are deaf.
+1 The more DJ you can give them in the side fills, the less you have to put in the wedges, cleaning those up to get the vocals at the obscenely loud volumes they will ask for.
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Speaking of monitors, did a hiphop show last Friday night. Here in Canada we are having a bit of a cold snap, -30C to -40C in some places. Our headliners flight from Toronto got cancelled, then another regional performer couldn't make it either, all this we find out around 6pm. Last minute we get 2 regional performers jump in their car and drive 3 hours braving the cold to save the show. Needless to say their was no time for a performer sound check, just had to wing it. I thought the stage sound was good, nice and loud with even coverage.
Show starts and one of the performers starts motioning to me more and more monitor. Once the board was pegged at +10 dB I run up to the stage to see if monitors are working, everything looks fine. Being powered monitors I increase the gain on the onboard amp until the monitor is pretty much pegged. Luckily no feedback , performer is still struggling to hear. At the same time the promoter rushes over to me and says we lost all HF energy in the room. I grab a chair and put my head in front of the PA, sounds fine to me up close. I run back to the board thinking that this gig is starting to "snowball" out of control on me, then I look up and see...
Toques! I mean everywhere! Performers- wearing toques with hoodies drawn tight over top of the toques. Promoter - same thing. The audience - all wearing big heavy Canadian style toques! Even the servers had toques on. I run back to the stage and motion to one of the performers to lift up the toque over his ears and he jumps back 5 feet and points at the monitor to take it back down. I put the monitor back down, run back to the board and put all the levels back where they were. Tell the promoter to lift up his toque and ear to ear smiles with the spectral balance in the room.
Just one more gotcha doing rap shows during a Canadian winter.
(https://i769.photobucket.com/albums/xx338/coronaoperator/edited-image.png)
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or:
I tell them up front I provide only well "eaten" SM58.
Ray
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Toques!
I seriously had to look this up to know what it was. LOL.
It's hilarious when people cover their ears and then say it doesn't sound right... What can you do?
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I never expect any rapper/vocalist to bring a mic.
I do however often take the opportunity to tell them about some vocalists I know who bring their own mic rig just like guitarists bring their own guitars. I show them some examples who have 8-10 space racks with 1-2 wireless channels, IEM, drawer with wired mic (s), another drawer with towels and other stage accessories. Front or rear panel with XLR, power and a couple USB ports for phone charging. One or two even have their own money channel effect.
I have built a few of them for people over the years. I think its a huge differentiator for the vocalists who bring their own rig.